


The Eyes of the World

by Janet_Coleman_Sides



Category: Kagaku Ninja Tai Gatchaman | Science Ninja Team Gatchaman
Genre: Closeted Character, Delusions, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-18
Updated: 2013-01-18
Packaged: 2017-11-25 22:16:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/643525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Janet_Coleman_Sides/pseuds/Janet_Coleman_Sides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of episode #80, Come Back! Boomerang, and the peacock mechs' delirium-beam attack, Ken is not fine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Eyes of the World

Ken does his very best to endure everyone's relief and happy tears at the end of the mission. The decontamination procedures they must all go through after this latest blast should probably wash the emotions away, as well. The usual medical clearances are even higher hurdles for him today, of course, given all the beams he was struck with by the side of the moonlit fountain in Asham. But it seems an eyeblink to Ken before they are telling him he is fine, such a strong young thing, Galactor can't keep him down, taking a licking, keeping on ticking and many other such jovial remarks. He is fine, and free to go home. And everyone is happy.

Except that Ken is not fine.

He goes home, of course, because part of what isn't fine about him is that he can't possibly tell anyone. He goes home, because if he has to go mad he would rather be on the skin of the earth, and not many fathoms under water. While he was in danger, adrenaline and training were what saved him today, but now all the various shocks are past, it's all catching up with him at once.

The eyes are everywhere, no matter what, because they're inside him: they've seen inside him, they've seen out from inside him, and they have seen his every thought and wish and there is nothing left now. All the eyes of the world looked into Ken at once, by the side of that fountain, in the cold blue moonlight. He managed to fling Jinpei aside, but then he fell down and shattered and though he covered his face it was too late and he could not hear himself screaming, though his throat burned.

The birds revealed their eyes, and the eyes burned him up; he longed for the water of the fountain but then it was torn asunder by the bird god rising up to revile him. Why should it do this? Had he not served it all his life?

But he cannot even ask what he has done wrong because he knows what. He knows what he has done, it is part of what he is and though he cannot help it that is no excuse. Not to a god. Not to all the eyes in the world.

All this has happened and is still happening inside him even as they tell Ken he is good to go but he should get a good night's sleep and oh everyone is so glad he is all right and fine, thank you, fine, he nods at everyone and everything until they let him leave. Going home, going home, going home. He will be fine once he gets home.

Only he's not fine.

Even when he keeps all the lights turned off, the afterimage of all those eyes continues jumping on Ken's retinas no matter what he does. They see him from everywhere. What must he do? What must he do to make it stop? He stretches out on the floor. He moans, fists clenched in his hair.

He can't bear it. He longs to die. His secret heart has been laid bare by his enemy and there is nothing left to hide. Shame throbs in him like the hard pulse in a wound.

It is bad. Madness is hell, relentless - neverending - worse than physical pain. This is worse than when his father died. His thoughts keep circling back obsessively like pain seeking missiles. And the eyes keep turning to look.

When his shadow comes to try to console him, at first he tries pushing it away. He can't bear the lights on, which he makes emphatically clear by smashing the lamp. It is his lamp and he wants it off forever.

"Okay," his shadow says. "Just let me --"

Whatever it is, no. "No more eyes!"

"All right. I promise. No light, no eyes. You want me to leave you alone?"

But you can't live without your shadow, without it you don't have a soul. "No! Stay." Must not sleep. Must not fall back inside into the dreaming place and be trapped forever with the eyes.

"I'm really worried about you, you know." His shadow is trying to sound normal, so much that his voice is shaking a little.

"It won't matter any more. I'm going to die when the sun rises," Ken says, sounding calm but his heart is suddenly crashing around with the terrible certainty of his own death, realized only this instant as he was speaking. Even now his life has been made worthless, here at the end.

"Oh," says his shadow, and there is a long awkward pause in the dark until Ken realizes that when he dies his shadow must naturally die too and that _is_ awkward. He tries to apologize.

"Never mind. Why when the sun rises?"

"Because of the eyes. The eyes. I can still feel them. When the sun rises the eyes will come back and see into me again and I can't bear to be alive anymore."

"Are you - talking about the birds, Ken? The peacocks? Their eyes weren't real, that was the delirium beam that they --"

"You don't understand," Ken says flatly. "I know what they were. I know what they did. It doesn't change anything. The eyes... not the birds' eyes, the _eyes_ , the _real_ eyes." Just the thought of them makes him want to writhe and bite at his hands, though he tries not to. "You don't understand, how could you, you're my shadow, always behind me."

"I saw it too! The light hit me too, for a minute. It... hurt."

Ken thought of his shadow burned into the ground. He had thought it while he crouched down, feeling the blast wind lifting his wings. Is that what separated him from his shadow, or was it when the eyes --

It isn't dark enough in this room. He has to move. He is gasping, burning for air, the water of the fountain. His mind's eye is filled with the cool blue of the light in that place, so at odds with the humid heat of the night there. That light keeps spreading toward him across the world, seeking him out.

Darkness. He seeks it as a haven, crawling into the bedroom whose only window is covered in blankets.

When the pressure in his head gets so bad that Ken starts hitting it against the floor to relieve it, his shadow makes him stop, pulling him up and pinning his arms against his sides. "I'm not putting up with that."

He writhes, fighting it, but of course his shadow is exactly as strong as he is. It just has the jump on him because it's dark. When he quiets down it says,

"Listen to me. When the sun rises, you're going to be fine. This thing is gonna wear off and you'll be all right. I'll stay with you, OK? Only I'm not putting up with you hurting yourself."

Of course it'll stay. Of course it doesn't want Ken hurt.

His shadow. It is wrapped around him. Warm and real.

The eyes are like a searchlight. A pulse of grief destroys the sweetness of this stolen moment. He twists free, after all.

"I mean it," his shadow says, though it cautiously lets go. "Stop hurting yourself."

"I'll try," Ken says. "But it won't matter for long." How many hours till the sunrise? His sense of time, usually precise, is skewed and surreal as a painting. He leans back against the bedframe, sitting there on the floor in the almost total darkness. The room feels vast, a whole base perhaps, it goes on and on, up and up, but there is one tiny window far up in the night.

Another silence. Ken's shadow says, "I don't understand. These eyes, whose are they? _what_ did they see?"

"They're - the eyes of the world. The entire world. Seeing me for what I am. Seeing into every thought and dream and memory and everything I ever... seeing what I really want and - " His voice is halting, he somehow knows, trying to stop, because he is saying things he has taught himself never to say, not even when drunk, not even if drugged, but the delirium wave is not a physical thing anymore, not since it crossed his optic nerve. It's in him now. His safeguards aren't working, they were no proof against the ghastly light that saw into him and exposes him.

"So they've seen. So what? Why should you have to die?"

"But --" Ken sits up, frowns into the dark. "The eyes all saw. The shame of it. The things I can't help but think about. Oh gods I can't bear it," wrapping his arms around himself and rocking back and forth in an effort not to fly apart. "Unworthy son that hated his father. Unworthy leader _forever_ failing his team. Unworthy friend, _oh unworthy friend_ ," terrible bitter laughter making his voice sound foreign, "lusting after his innocent, normal second in command. Why shouldn't I just die? The light of day will burn me up as I deserve, just go away now, please."

"Is that all?" Beside him in the dark, Ken's shadow sighs. "You keep carrying the whole world. Is it really so shameful to want something? Really?" A hand finds Ken's shoulder and gives him a gentle shake.

"It was secret," Ken whispers. "And he'll - never - "

His shadow is pinning his arms down again, though he has done nothing to hurt himself this time.

"It _is_ secret. Except from me. And you told me yourself. You're going to be okay, Ken, the world hasn't ended, the eyes didn't really see anything. Are you listening to me?"

"Yes." He doesn't agree, but he is listening.

"Good. It's going to wear off. You'll be okay. Just stay calm."

"I am calm." He only wants to die. These things need not be mutually exclusive. "Tired."

"Then sleep. Bed's right here."

"Don't want to sleep. Eyes."

"They can't see you. Get your ass on up there." Some disorienting motion, and Ken bounces onto his own bed.

After a moment, his shadow lies down beside him in the dark. Ken can hear and smell him, sense his weight and heat. Do shadows have those things? He can't remember. His does, anyway.

It cannot be told which one reaches over first. But then they are clasped in each other's arms on his bed in the dark and _he knows and is still here_ and _oh how good he has always smelled_ \--

When the next wave of paranoia rolls over him and he starts to pull back, babbling about the eyes seeing them, his shadow seeks his mouth out with a silencing kiss that goes on and on and on as though to say _Give them something to look at then._

Heat in this, obviously, and its own kind of light. Ken clings to it, drinks from it, bathes in it. It isn't the mad bird god that his heart truly serves: it's this, his own shadow. _Joe_.

***  
Ken survives the sunrise, of course. It was a delusion induced by the delirium beam, like the eyes - a hallucination of the patterns on the tails of the artificial peacocks which had surrounded him and attacked him with as much force as had been used for a crowd of one hundred. He is able to understand this now. He is not mad.

"Well, you're still alive," says Joe, who is no longer a shadow but visibly himself. "Think you can sleep now?"

Mutely Ken nods.

"You do that then. When you've gotten some rest I'm taking your ass back to CC so they can make REALLY sure you're okay. And... when you're feeling better... we can talk about _normal_ and _innocent_ then."

Ken's eyes have been sliding shut at last but they open now, to stare up at Joe.

"Good _night_ ," says Joe, pointedly.


End file.
